SWV comments on Autumn Budget

Supporting Wounded Veterans was pleased to hear the announcement in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 that the government will provide an additional £5 million in 2022-23 for research that will ensure veterans get the support they need.

Rishi Sunak has said that, “Supporting injured veterans and those with mental health needs is a crucial part of repaying the huge debt we all owe them” and we are delighted that the budget includes research for new treatments for mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder. 

PTSD is an issue that many veterans struggle with. It is estimated that between a third and a half of PTSD cases overall are resistant to established treatments, and veterans’ PTSD tends on average to be more resistant to treatment than others.

Gilly Norton, Chief Executive of Supporting Wounded Veterans, said: 

“We are very pleased that the Government is recognising that mental health injuries, and PTSD particularly, are a problem, and that new and innovative approaches should be researched in order to tackle them. It is important that we take the opportunity to advance clinical treatments for PTSD and ensure that veterans have access to new and innovative therapies that are proved to be more effective than anything else currently available. We cannot see British veterans miss out on a potentially invaluable treatment and suffer for even more years.”

In December 2020 SWV launched its Pioneer Programme to raise money for research into MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and continues to invite donations. 

This followed the results from a highly successful US trial of the therapy in which the US-based non-profit body, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, revealed that 67% of participants who received three MDMA-assisted therapy sessions no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis and 88% experienced a clinically meaningful reduction in symptoms, among other positive findings.